Comparing Ken Holland with Peter Chiarelli

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Chia fell into the same trap as MacT.

Some good early trades, MPS for Perron, Scrivens for Kassian, Maroon for a song and a dance... But fixing the issues of your predecessor is easy, it's a lot harder when your solutions fail. But good news for those two: that was just impossible. *Fingers in ears* LALALALALALALALA

Nikitin and Ference are top 4 defencemen, on-ice results be damned; Jultz will always be the golden boy, while Petry needs to prove himself; Eakins is a top-tier coach and definitely not a snake oils salesman; Lucic is a top 6er, 30 games without a goal be damned; Pulju at 18/19 is ready to replace Ebs, he just he's a broken down Jokinen to unlock his endless potential...


Say what you will about Holland, but he doesn't keep trying to beat that dead horse to get it to work.
AA was cast off asap when he didn't click McDavid or Drai. Same with Campbell, who probably got too little rope, but that's the price when you make 5mil in a tight cap world.

Plus his bold moves actually worked out more often than not. Hyman, Ekholm being the two biggest gems.

***

The only one I'll defend Chia on: Imo Reinhart wasn't his mistake. He had only been with the organisation for 2 months and had no experience with Reinhart. That one was entirely pushed for by Green.

But what should have happened was Chia saying sure he's a great prospect, but the team already has Klefbom and Marincin showing decently at the NHL level, Davidson and Oesterle playing well in OKC, and Nurse drafted 2 years previous. Why the hell was another young LHD a need?
Not pushing back after the team depth chart is where Chia f***ed up.

Chiarelli is absolutely to blame for the Reinhart trade. He referenced several times watching him live at Memorial Cup and early pro games. New guy who coming in with negotiated title beyond GM and ultimate organization decision making power, this was Chiarelli's first power move.

Fact that the Oilers and Green specifically had years of information on Reinhart unfortunately sealed the incredibly bad decision. This 'bold' Chiarelli decision making is consistent with his big blunders with Saguin and Hall. Reinhart was foreshadowing of the buffoonery to come that culminated with his awful try to save his job desperation work that further hollowed out a thin NHL roster.

“He has to make our team,” Chiarelli said. “We’ve got eight or nine D who are challenging. I believe he is. I know his year last year wasn’t great and there’s reasons behind that and that really is, not excuses, but there are reasons that explain it. But what I saw in the Memorial Cup is that you’ve got a player here who can dominate, that can lug the puck, and that can make plays and for a bigger sized man, he can move well.”

About Holland he tried to re-sign AA after rolling out two quality picks for him, but, (thankfully) covid cap saved him from overpaying a largely mediocre player.

Chiarelli set his course right from the McDavid draft trying to speed up the rebuild with a big pro level prospect d he was confident in from his own direct scouting and evaluation. Spoiled the quality second first rounder MacTavish left him and high second round pick that would have given this organization a couple of quality adds to a lean prospect pool. Master of his own demise.

 

[Oilhawks]

Sounds like damage control to me. “Of course we wanted Koskinen at 4 mill”

From the brilliant mind of "If Toby Rieder scored a goal, we would have made the playoffs"

 

[TheNumber4]

List of Holland's trades as an Oiler:

Lucic+3rd round pick for Neal - small win as getting rid of Lucic was essential, but still paying for Neal buyout today.

John Marino for 6th round pick - meh

Kyle Brodziak + 4th for Mike Green - meh

Two x2nd round picks (plus fan favourite Sam Gagner) for Athanasiou - absolutely horrendous

5th round pick for Tyler Ennis - meh

4th round pick for Kulikov - meh

Caleb Jones + 3rd round pick for Duncan Keith - Absolutely horrendous. Should have received a 1st round pick to take Keith from Chicago.

Ethan Bear for Warren Foegele - win. Foegele was a decent contributor here for 3 years and Bear has bounced around.

Lagesson+2nd for Kulak - win. If Kulak had just been a rental I don't think it would have been worth it. But he's been a good player for us since.

4th round pick for Derek Brassard - bad trade

Kassian + 1st + 2nd + 3rd for 1st - horrendous (to be fair more so an issue of the awful contract he gave to Kassian).

Samorukov for Kostin - win

Puljujarvi for some rando - meh

Barrie+Schaeffer for Ekholm - A++ massive win

Bjugstad for 4th - meh

Yamamoto+Kostin for futures - meh. Didn't have the cap space to re-sign Kostin and at least didn't give up anything to dump Yamamoto

4th rounder for Troy Stetcher - meh. Team never wanted to play him and then he got hurt.

1st+4th for Henrique and Carrick - win because Henrique re-signed but a 1st was a lot to give up for a guy that was relegated to 3rd line duty.

Overall I think that is a pretty mediocre list of trades. One really great trade in 5 years when the team was trying to win a cup isn't nearly good enough imo. A handful of other decent trades. A bunch of meh deadline acquisitions that never really helped us get anywhere. And a couple really terrible ones.

(I left out ones that just involved AHL guys or just picks)

The thing that stands out to me is that of all those trades and additions, only Ekholm and Foegele were positive value guys who had team control beyond the season we acquired them. Everyone else was UFA or an RFA we couldn't qualify. We re-signed Kulak and Henrique and obviously their time here played a big part in that. But both of them made it into free agency before we signed them.

Overall I don't think Holland was ever proactive enough in improving the roster. He never gave the impression he was turning over every stone and looking in every corner to make deals that could make the team better and he all but refused to make "NHL trades" (players for players).

I don't think I can bring myself to look through the Chiarelli trades though lol. The Talbot and Maroon ones he made were really good. After that is a calamity of cluster f***ery.

Honestly that amount of mehs, small wins, and one big win is more than most GMs that tried their hand at the job in Edmonton had.

The amount of activity is actually impressive in itself. Compared to some GMs we’ve had and around the League.

I do fault Holland for bringing over his crappy scouts though. No doubt some of those pick ups were Archie’s picks.

I agree with your rating for most, except some. On the Kieth trade, Hawks took a sizeable 2 year cap penalty as a consequence of that trade. Risk likely known at the time of dealing. That’s not worth paying a 1st to get rid of him, they also weren’t getting rid of him, they were doing Keith a favor. Keith was fine as an Oiler.

On Pool, I don’t know how much he could have got for a bust with broken hips in Pool either as we found out when Carolina then gave him away for free.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

One is pretty bald and the other has hair.

 

[Stoneman89]

Not sure which one of them offered up the Kassian signing, but that was brutal. Yet another, where a guy played with McDavid a bit, had a great game or 2 in the playoffs and got outlandishly rewarded far past his normal paygrade.

And regarding Koskinen, there were some on here who vigorously defended that contract. And amazingly, even when it was in it's 3rd or 4th year. But it was an unmitigated disaster and Chia's final "f*** you" to the organization. And whoever oversaw that should have taken the fall as well.

 

[Stoneman89]

Devils advocate counter punch being the Leon and McDavid deals lol.

both did absolutely out play their contracts. But at the same time anyone could have seen that coming.

I do remember when Drai got that contract, there was some concern, and it got much louder after the 1st year or so. But yes, it did quiet down after that, and became a value contract. McDavid's of course, was never in question.

 

[SwedishFire]

I think KH was obviously the better of the two. Chia was erratic and seemingly changing directions every year. The Reinhart and Hall deals will live in infamy. Tried to skip steps because of Connor and it ultimately cost us big time.


KH seemed to have a much more clear direction for the team and made the attempt to never sway from his vision. He made some big mistakes but some of those mistakes were beyond his control as well. He lost his top pairing Dman the minute he walked through the door. At the time no top 4 D men would come play here. With no wingers and only two top 4 defenseman he took the team from the bottom to the playoffs and second in the division. He even added some guys at the deadline. Then the world stopped for Covid and the real issues started. All of sudden the cap that was supposed to go up by 5-10 million dollars was not moving at all. Still he was able to add Barrie the following year and provide what little scoring support he could . The team continued to progress but the Goaltending continued to falter by the following summer. Having lost dirt to the Blackhawks and then to the Jets in back to back years he pushed hard for a goalie in the summer of 2021. None were to be had even with an overpay. He turned to Smith once more with a retirement deal. The team faltered early that season ultimately replacing the coach before rocketing to second in the division. He added a defenseman and a top 6 winger. The team once again was done in by goaltending and defense. That summer he made a decision that the number one priority was goaltending and signed JC to a monster 5x5 deal. This was the one that killed them JC was a disaster his first season and we were very lucky a hot young rookie goalie caught fire. His dream was finally realized when he added Ekholm at the deadline. Finally we had a top pair d man. We all know how this season went.


All in all KH made some bad moves and some good moves. But his vision never faltered he had a clear direction for this team and we didn’t miss the playoffs once under his reign. It’s really no comparison one guy dismantled a team on the verge the other navigated the rough waters and got us as close as you can get without winning it all.

Jackson though, Jackson probably just put the finishing touches on what will be the ultimate prize. How he did what he just did I will never know absolute masterclass.

KH come into a complete mess and mess up, I dpnt k ow what chiarelli wad thinking the ladt year, but certainly he is bad at everything that is economy.

KH had to dig deep into his contacts to sign talents that has been in his organisation. And year by year found better and better signings, Signing Hyman, signing Nuge to a grwat contract, signing Ceci , a big and strong RD, who was a need - why not give him that. Get rid of the Lucic contract. Was pn when Kane was avaliable, just as Perry. Trading for a 1D in ekholm. Signing a whole load of depth players like Janmark, Brown, and some could had worked like Haas. And some like Nygård was obvious not to work as he was just a great skater.

The only bad was Kassians and Campbells contracts, whom was reqlly bad. Why throw 5 millions at a goalie who hasnt proved anything?

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

That Jackson has lapped them both with only a few days work says a lot about Bob Nicholson's hiring prowess.

 

[Fourier]

Chiarelli is absolutely to blame for the Reinhart trade. He referenced several times watching him live at Memorial Cup and early pro games. New guy who coming in with negotiated title beyond GM and ultimate organization decision making power, this was Chiarelli's first power move.

Fact that the Oilers and Green specifically had years of information on Reinhart unfortunately sealed the incredibly bad decision. This 'bold' Chiarelli decision making is consistent with his big blunders with Saguin and Hall. Reinhart was foreshadowing of the buffoonery to come that culminated with his awful try to save his job desperation work that further hollowed out a thin NHL roster.

“He has to make our team,” Chiarelli said. “We’ve got eight or nine D who are challenging. I believe he is. I know his year last year wasn’t great and there’s reasons behind that and that really is, not excuses, but there are reasons that explain it. But what I saw in the Memorial Cup is that you’ve got a player here who can dominate, that can lug the puck, and that can make plays and for a bigger sized man, he can move well.”

About Holland he tried to re-sign AA after rolling out two quality picks for him, but, (thankfully) covid cap saved him from overpaying a largely mediocre player.

Chiarelli set his course right from the McDavid draft trying to speed up the rebuild with a big pro level prospect d he was confident in from his own direct scouting and evaluation. Spoiled the quality second first rounder MacTavish left him and high second round pick that would have given this organization a couple of quality adds to a lean prospect pool. Master of his own demise.

I think that the Reinhart trade was a also a good part of the genesis of the Hall trade. Had he not made that deal or if he had actually used those assets to get a good defender the panic that led to making the Hall trade from a place of total weakness would probably not have happened.

 

[Spawn]

I think that the Reinhart trade was an also a good part of the genesis of the Hall trade. Had he not made that deal or if he had actually used those assets to get a good defender the panic that led to making the Hall trade from a place of total weakness would probably not have happened.

There’s definitely an alternate reality where the Oilers don’t sign Chiarelli and the alternative GM trades for Dougie Hamilton instead of Calgary. Who knows how that might have changed the trajectory of the team.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

I think that the Reinhart trade was a also a good part of the genesis of the Hall trade. Had he not made that deal or if he had actually used those assets to get a good defender the panic that led to making the Hall trade from a place of total weakness would probably not have happened.

The move was for Dougie Hamilton with those draft assets. Unfortunately Bruins leadership was too pissed off at Chiarelli to deal with the Oilers. Then throw a 2nd round pick per inane short-lived NHL rule for Edmonton hiring this fired GM. Not an auspicious start or ending to Chiarelli's carpet bombing tenure.

 

[foshizzle]

Chiarelli signing Koskinen to that anchor of a contract the day before being fired has to be one of the biggest head scratchers ever. How was that allowed to happen?

From someone I know close to the org at the time- that was a Kevin Lowe special. He pushed for it.

 

[Sweetpotato]

As has been said. Ken Holland was frustrating and way too inactive to achieve anything but did enough to have some success. Chiarelli actively destroyed the team and set the franchise back 2-3 years.

Relatively large difference between them even though they both hurt the franchise to varying degrees.

 

[TopShelfGloveSide]

From someone I know close to the org at the time- that was a Kevin Lowe special. He pushed for it.

Is it the same guy who said we are getting Tom Wilson?

 

[TB12]

Like comparing apple pie to chlamydia.

 

[Soundwave]

Chiarelli dug his own grave by passing on so many good players available to him in the draft. He could have picked any one of

Matthew Tkachuk
Matt Barzal
Brock Boeser
Eriksson-Ek
Sebastian Aho
Debrincat (this was a no brainer given he was McDavid's junior linemate)
Sergachev

Etc. etc. and we opted to go with Griffin Reinhart, Tyler Benson, Jesse Puljujarvi, etc.

 

[Fourier]

Chiarelli dug his own grave by passing on so many good players available to him in the draft. He could have picked any one of

Matthew Tkachuk
Matt Barzal
Brock Boeser
Eriksson-Ek
Sebastian Aho
Debrincat (this was a no brainer given he was McDavid's junior linemate)
Sergachev

Etc. etc. and we opted to go with Griffin Reinhart, Tyler Benson, Jesse Puljujarvi, etc.

I don't blame him for JP even though before he became available I was all in on Tkachuk. I think most GM's in the league would have made the same call. I may be wrong but I don't think Tkachuk was a clear consensus pick on these boards. My memory might be off but I think Sergachev was as coveted or more so. Of course in hind sight that would have been a better use of the #4 pick.

I confess that I was less upset with Benson over Debrincat than many. I'd have picked Debrincat but I did not have a big gap between them.

From what we are told the Oilers would have passed on Barzal. Frankly, I found that hard to justify, Barzal fell but my position is that in the middle of Round 1 if a guy is that talented you take the pick and run unless there is some clear reason not to.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

I don't blame him for JP even though before he became available I was all in on Tkachuk. I think most GM's in the league would have made the same call. I may be wrong but I don't think Tkachuk was a clear consensus pick on these boards. My memory might be off but I think Sergachev was as coveted or more so. Of course in hind sight that would have been a better use of the #4 pick.

I confess that I was less upset with Benson over Debrincat than many. I'd have picked Debrincat but I did not have a big gap between them.

From what we are told the Oilers would have passed on Barzal. Frankly, I found that hard to justify, Barzal fell but my position is that in the middle of Round 1 if a guy is that talented you take the pick and run unless there is some clear reason not to.

Oil went with the consensus pick with JP. Unfortunately Chiarelli was a factor in the organization's poor development which was also a source of friction with the head coach he hired.

I took in the Mem Cup in Red Deer and came away feeling I saw McDavid's future top line winger with Tkatchuk and also Olli Juolevi being grossly overrated dishing to London's wagon forward group. Oil allegedly wanted Sergachev but couldn't resist PJ falling. Of course then I could see like a slow motion car crash Vancouver f***ing up taking Juolevi and Tkachuk going to the Flamers as an Iggy 2.0 pain in the ass. Benson was a bad pick in RD 2 coloured by his elite midget # and hometown bias. Fairly confident though Chiarelli would not have taken a small skill guy like Debrincat.

About the McDavid draft they were never taking another small skill guy, Barzal, who had injury issues in junior. His comp was Nugent Hopkins. It was reported a prime target was Joel Ericksson Ek had they kept the pick.

Critical high pedigree draft misses at a formative stage of organizational development.

 

[Canovin]

I don't blame him for JP even though before he became available I was all in on Tkachuk. I think most GM's in the league would have made the same call. I may be wrong but I don't think Tkachuk was a clear consensus pick on these boards. My memory might be off but I think Sergachev was as coveted or more so. Of course in hind sight that would have been a better use of the #4 pick.

I confess that I was less upset with Benson over Debrincat than many. I'd have picked Debrincat but I did not have a big gap between them.

From what we are told the Oilers would have passed on Barzal. Frankly, I found that hard to justify, Barzal fell but my position is that in the middle of Round 1 if a guy is that talented you take the pick and run unless there is some clear reason not to.

I believe the Oilers would have taken Eriksson Ek if they kept the picks in 2015. We also would have drafted Sergachev if Pulju didn't drop.

McDavid
Eriksson Ek
Sergachev
Bouchard

Would have been a nice haul just from 2015, 2016 and 2018

 

[Fourier]

Oil went with the consensus pick with JP. Unfortunately Chiarelli was a factor in the organization's poor development which was also a source of friction with the head coach he hired.

I took in the Mem Cup in Red Deer and came away feeling I saw McDavid's future top line winger with Tkatchuk and also Olli Juolevi being grossly overrated dishing to London's wagon forward group. Oil allegedly wanted Sergachev but couldn't resist PJ falling. Of course then I could see like a slow motion car crash Vancouver f***ing up taking Juolevi and Tkachuk going to the Flamers as an Iggy 2.0 pain in the ass. Benson was a bad pick in RD 2 coloured by his elite midget # and hometown bias. Fairly confident though Chiarelli would not have taken a small skill guy like Debrincat.

About the McDavid draft they were never taking another small skill guy, Barzal, who had injury issues in junior. His comp was Nugent Hopkins. It was reported a prime target was Joel Ericksson Ek had they kept the pick.

Critical high pedigree draft misses at a formative stage of organizational development.

I saw a fair bit of Tkachuk as it feels like the Rangers play the Knights 14 times each year. (games vs the Knights are always big deals.) And back then I had time to use the OHL package that comes with the Super Sports Pak that you get with Center Ice. I was full on board. And yes it seems that Sergachev was more the target. Like you I think Juolevi was buoyed by the Knights so I definitely dd not want him.

What I don't know is how salvageable JP would have been under a different management. I was very much pulling for the kid but I think his immaturity and to a degree the bad advice he got off the ice may have made it difficult for him to make the adjustments needed to succeed in the NHL.

It was clear that the Oilers were looking for size (though the ironic thing is that today Barzal is not really all that small). Eriksson-Ek was one of the most talked about targets along with Svechnikov I believe. In hind sight Eriksson-Ek would have been an excellent pick as he has added offense to a very well rounded game. But I do wonder if his slower development might not have seen a rather impatient Chia move on from him prematurely. He was also ranked 23 by McKenzie that year and I suspect would have been viewed as a failed reach by this board for quite a while.

Again in hindsight, Svech the elder of course would have been a wasted pick. In fact that draft had a lot of big guys who never really made out as well as expected while some of the smaller guys like Marner, Barzal and Konecny turned out great. Konecny by the way was another guy I liked despite being small. I still followed Kingston and Ottawa a fair bit back then because of the time I spent in Kingston after graduating. Despite being small he was damn fiesty.

 

[foshizzle]

Is it the same guy who said we are getting Tom Wilson?

Huh?

 

[TopShelfGloveSide]

Huh?

Wasn’t it you who knows a guy in the organization who heard we were possibly trading Kane for Wilson? Or something along those lines.

 

[foshizzle]

Wasn’t it you who knows a guy in the organization who heard we were possibly trading Kane for Wilson? Or something along those lines.

Nope. Maybe get your posters straight before being a dick. I have zero connections to the org now so have no clue what’s going on. I have never posted a rumour.

 

[TopShelfGloveSide]

Nope. Maybe get your posters straight before being a dick. I have zero connections to the org now so have no clue what’s going on. I have never posted a rumour.

Ahh nvm I remember.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

I saw a fair bit of Tkachuk as it feels like the Ranger play the Knights 14 times each year. (games vs the Knights are always big deals.) And back then I had time to use the OHL package that comes with the Super Sports Pak that you get with Center Ice. I was full on board. And yes it seems that Sergachev was more the target. Like you I think Juolevi was buoyed by the Knights so I definitely dd not want him.

What I don't know is how salvageable JP would have been under a different management. I was very much pulling for the kid but I think his immaturity and to a degree the bad advice he got off the ice may have made it difficult for him to make the adjustments needed to succeed in the NHL.

It was clear that the Oilers were looking for size (though the ironic thing is that today Barzal is not really all that small). Eriksson-Ek was one of the most talked about targets along with Svechnikov I believe. In hind sight Eriksson-Ek would have been an excellent pick as he has added offense to a very well rounded game. But I do wonder if his slower development might not have seen a rather impatient Chia move on from him prematurely. He was also ranked 23 by McKenzie that year and I suspect would have been viewed as a failed reach by this board for quite a while.

Again in hindsight, Svech the elder of course would have been a wasted pick. In fact that draft had a lot of big guys who never really made out as well as expected while some of the smaller guys like Marner, Barzal and Konecny turned out great. Konecny by the way was another guy I liked despite being small. I still followed Kingston and Ottawa a fair bit back then because of the time I spent in Kingston after graduating. Despite being small he was damn fiesty.

You had a good read with your viewings. I just saw the banged up Tkachuk who was dialed in at the Memorial Cup (without the circus sideshow that's been part of his NHL game). Juolevi wasn't an Oiler target but my fear was realized that Vancouver would reach for him and have Tkatchuk fall to Calgary. Doh!

I usually place the overwhelming development responsibility on players. In PJ's situation though it is certainly shared with the player nowhere ready mentally or emotionally or skill level to play NHL games at age 18. His agent did the player wrong. PJ did not prepare himself with language and life skills to move to North America at 18; and Chiarelli fast tracking the kid all carry responsibility. I'm not sure Puljujarvi had faced any adversity playing until it hit full force with reality of NHL level of competition. He was not prepared in any capacity and that lands on he and agent.

YES! Svech the Elder was another primary target. And another player who never met his perceived draft potential. I was a bit skeptical of Konecny's size and durability which has been proven wrong. Nice player. Some proving points in that draft year that elite small skill can play and excel in the modern NHL game.

Appreciate your post and experiences of those OHL players.